The next skill I'd like to share with you in my "Think and Writes" series is called "Here's the Answer: What's the Question?" This is definitely a higher order thinking skill that needs a lot of direct instruction and scaffolding at first, but they love the challenge! I tell students they are the teacher. Their job is to come up with a question that goes with the answer I give them.
Here is an example from our plant unit:
I am asking the students to come up with a question that can be answered with "the roots."
Students might write, "What part of a plant soaks up water and minerals?", "What part of a plant anchors the plant in the soil?", "What part of a plant is underground?" All these questions can be answered with the roots. It is amazing how many different questions they come up with!
An error that students make at first is trying to put the answer in their questions. They might write, "What do the roots do?" Well it doesn't make sense to answer that question with the roots. We always talk about how you usually can't put the answer in your question; it just won't make sense.
One way I scaffold students with this activity is by having a question words bulletin board up. I find students get the question words confused on a frequent basis. I have the most common question words up with the reason we use them, a sentence, and picture example of each. When I am first teaching this "Think and Write" activity, we go over each question word and how it is used. If students are stuck, we read each question word and see what one matches our answer. For instance, Can we use who when our answer is roots? No. Can we use where? Probably not. Can we use what? Yes, because roots are a thing.
Another way I scaffold students is by writing a question sentence frame in the dialogue box. So if I had lower levels of language acquisition or if we were just learning this skill I might have a slide like this:
Or I might just have the question word in the sentence frame.
The possibilities are endless with this activity as well. I use this skill weekly with whatever unit we are covering. It gives me a quick check into their question words, writing, and understanding of key vocabulary. This week, I am teaching American Inventors so my answer was "Benjamin Franklin." Some of my students' questions were "Who invented bifocals?", "Who helped start the first library?", "Who was a founding father of our country?" I love it! I also got this one, "Who are we studying about in ESL?" Technically that works, but I always say be more specific to the answer.
If you are new to this series, check out my first post on "Think and Writes." There is a sample pack available. Plus check out my "Think and Writes: Plant Pack."
Happy adventuring,
Heidi
